I’ve been fascinated by the discussions about the Barbie movie, so decided to share my own thoughts.
I was never a girly-girl, and the only Barbie I received, unasked-for, ended up headless—courtesy of my brothers (it wasn’t that I cared so much about Decapitated Barbie, as the fact that my Territory and Stuff had been invaded: to the ramparts!) I do remember wanting a Twister Skipper, but since I didn’t play with dolls anyway, it wasn’t a big deal. I spent my time with my stuffed animal zoo, our cat, and trying to keep up with said brothers, who only let me tag along if I could keep up.
As an adult, my feminist self has spent decades incensed by Barbie's oversexualized, warped body proportions: she looks like a daddy longlegs spider, complete with microscopic hands and feet. The outrageously large breasts look like giant egg sacs, and her creepy made-up face completes the nightmare.
Barbie’s distorted body contributes to negative body image and eating disorders. As discussed by Renee Engeln Ph.D., professor of psychology at Northwestern University, in her Psychology Today article, "Why Girls Are Rejecting the New ‘Curvy’1 Barbie": “Researchers have established that girls as young as 3 show a bias in favor of thin bodies.” She describes how the doll’s body would translate to real life:
One analysis suggests that if Barbie were a real woman, her size and shape would leave her with only half a liver and a few inches of intestine, and she'd be relegated to crawling on all fours, incapable of lifting her gigantic head on her uber-slender neck. A 1960s version of Barbie even came with a diet guidebook containing simple advice for young girls: “Don’t eat.” [emphasis mine: excuse me?]2
Crawling on all fours, her breasts would, indeed, hang underneath her torso with her giant head freakishly attached: my nightmare was not so far off. But, one might argue, dolls aren’t meant to represent actual people. Not so! A quick image search of dolls up until the middle of the twentieth century (Barbie was first introduced in 1959) shows that dolls were absolutely made to resemble real people: there were baby dolls, dolls that looked like young children, and even dolls representing adults. Not one of them was freakishly exaggerated. The point was for the dolls to imitate people.
Then, with the advent of Barbie, the first “fashion doll,” we all went tumbling down the rabbit hole, wherein very young children began absorbing the message that they were meant to make their own bodies resemble an impossibly distorted doll.
The National Eating Disorders Association shows a clear link between negative body image and eating disorders:
People with negative body image have a greater likelihood of developing an eating disorder and are more likely to suffer from feelings of depression, isolation, low self-esteem, and obsessions with weight loss.3
Unless we think it’s fine for three-year-olds to have started down the path toward a lifetime of struggling with body image, damage to health wrought by cyclical dieting, and the potential for eating disorders, prevention consists of dismantling the overwhelming messages that thin is good, and anything else is not. How do we work to prevent eating disorders? The National Eating Disorders Association advises:
Prevention efforts may involve reducing negative risk factors, like body dissatisfaction, depression, or basing self-esteem on appearance, or increasing protective factors, like a non-appearance-oriented self-definition and replacing dieting and body snarking with intuitive eating and appreciation for the body’s functionality.4 [emphasis mine]
Having said all this, I want to be clear that a combined 800 billion-dollar global diet ($224)5 and beauty ($579) industry6 is only one part of the problem. Another piece of this is a society quite literally built for only one type of body, which leaves out all the people who use a different way to get around, are shorter, taller, wider, heavier or otherwise physically different. If you don’t fit the one-size-fits-only-some mold, it can be difficult or impossible to sit in an airplane, drive a car, walk through a doorway, climb stairs, buy clothing that is affordable and fits, sit in a waiting room, fit in a hospital bed, reach the drive-through ATM, get a haircut, or enjoy meeting friends at a pub. Sure, the public accommodations language included in Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act has brought us part of the way toward accessibility, but it falls far short of including everyone, because it only allows for accommodations based on disability.7
The third piece of the problem is a culture that weaponizes fat. It has been acceptable to discriminate against and vilify people, based on their size, with impunity. Both children and adults are allowed, and sometimes even encouraged, to bully, shame, and denigrate people in larger bodies. The good news is that the needle on this is starting to move, albeit glacially, with smashing progress such as the New York City Council’s passage of legislation to outlaw height and weight discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodation!8
So no, I am not going to see the Barbie movie, because I think that Barbie has done enough irreparable damage to girls and women, starting at an obscenely young age. In addition, I wouldn’t throw a penny toward a monster toy corporation like Mattel which has done nothing to acknowledge or mitigate—much less compensate for—the damage its highly profitable product has done for more than half a century. “Curvy Barbie” is not even a (quite literally) half-assed attempt, because, let’s recall that in real life, she would be a size 4-6: this is nowhere near the national average of a size 16-18!9 How about actual FAT Barbies, with as much positive glamor, marketing, and advertising money poured into her as they’ve spent on Spider Barbie since 1959? Yeah. Then let’s talk.
Before you go all “But what about health?,” let me link to some exceptional education on that topic,10 although, the question of what about anyone else’s health but your own (and those entrusted to your care) can be answered with this question: What about it? Even if you put stock in the widespread but compromised “research11” that claims extra weight leads to poor health, do I have the right to whinge about people who smoke, don’t wear helmets, engage in high-risk sports, drink alcohol, get repeatedly sunburned, and drive while sleep-deprived? Do you?
Although I could continue to rail against Barbie, my time and energy is better spent focusing on the root of little girls’ persistent preference for Spider Barbie: helping to dismantle the inculcation from birth into the twisted body image cult that is modern society.
Gobsmackingly, “Curvy Barbie has a slightly rounded stomach, thicker legs, and no ‘thigh gap.’ But the term curvy is a bit misleading. While not emaciated-looking like the original Barbie, she’s still quite thin, likely a US size 4 or 6.” [emphasis mine] Scroll down to the fifth paragraph here for a picture of the four Barbie styles.
I will be writing more in the future on these issues, but want to immediately recommend an excellent array of resources by Virginia Sole-Smith, a talented and respected journalist with a long list of credentials—not the least of which (just the latest) is being a New York Times Bestselling Author!
Her book is FAT TALK: Parenting In the Age of Diet Culture. Click on the link to purchase a copy. It is also available as an audiobook, read by the author.
Don’t miss her podcast here, and I can’t recommend highly enough all the incredible information on her Substack, Burnt Toast!
